


Wait.

by Azertygod



Series: Wait. [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Kent Parson has Issues, Mature for dark thoughts, Mentioned OMCs, No Character Death, No Sex, Post 3.26, Really dark just fyi, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Kent Parson, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, as much as I could, not important though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:38:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azertygod/pseuds/Azertygod
Summary: The only way out of a nightmare is to wake up.Wake up and it’s all over, and this whole clusterfuck is over, and Jack and the captaincy and his job and hockey is over and it’s all done.





	Wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Read the tags, they all apply. This is very dark.

“You see this?” 

 

Kent has seen it one hundred million times, but when he sees it, both of the kissers are wearing skates. When he sees it, they’re both wearing Aces’ black. When he sees it, it doesn’t punch a hole through his chest, a gaping wound that can never close again.

 

Maybe it never closed to begin with. 

 

But now, when Kent sees it, he knows there are only a couple of doors that the media can take. 

 

Oh, there’s the nice door, with a statement by You Can Play and the Falconer’s GM and fucking Gary Bettman, and the dark door, where Fox (and friends) pile on, talking about whether Zimmermann had a “right” to talk about this openly, whether this kind of behavior  _ really  _ has a place in the locker room. 

 

And then there’s the rainbow fucking carpet that leads right back to the draft, and the overdose, and Kent. 

 

“So he’s gay or whatever? Jesus Christ.”

 

Will Carl say that once they start whispering about Kent?

 

No. He’s a douche, but not an idiot. He won’t say things like that, not around Kent. But they’ll still be said. 

 

Kent throws back his drink, stands and turns to the bathroom. 

 

“Hey Parse, finally gonna lose your shit over not getting the Cup?” Goose calls. 

 

“Fuck off man, I need to take a call from your mom.” Kent grins back. 

 

Get the bathroom. Lock the stall. Freak out silently. Freak out silently Freak out sil- He’s gonna lose everything. The Aces aren’t the Falconers, Las Vegas isn’t Providence. Or, it is, in terms of the normies who live there, but the Aces don’t get by on resident tickets, they get by on the cheap-ass bastards from rural California, Texas, and Florida who don’t have enough money to go to one of the crazy strip-shows, but still want a Las Vegas™ live event.

 

They don’t want to watch a  _ faggot _ play with a stick.

 

And he won’t have Jack. Jack is gone, lost to bad decisions, worse decisions, and fucking horrible decisions on Kent’s part and Jack isn’t coming back. 

 

That’s final, and that's what really starts to rip Kent apart. 

Kent’s worst recurring nightmare isn't-wasn’t technically recurring, it just had the same element of fear in it each time. 

 

He’d be alone, hiding behind a tree, or in a room with only one door, or in a hole in the ground, and he’d be being  _ hunted. _ He couldn’t leave his spot, cause they would see him and he’d die, so all he could do was wait. Wait and wait for his death, and that waiting, that omnipresent fear, was what had him waking up, first in his own bed and then in countless billet family guest rooms, terrified of opening his bedroom door.

 

But right now, Kent can leave, and the realization allows him to calm down. He can get out, and so he does, tossing a quick “don’t fuck up your night,” to the guys at the bar, and practically running into the Las Vegas night. 

 

It’s warmer than Kent would have liked; even after 7 years in Vegas, the heat still crushes him, makes him feel oppressed and beaten down by the hot air. Thankfully, he spends most of his time at the blessedly cool rink - the  _ rink _ , oh god Kent is never going back. 

 

They have the rest of this week off, and by then, it will all be out, and the front office will have called in Swoops to trade his A for a C, and the mortality cause in Kent’s 70-million dollar, 8-year contract will be triggered, and Kent will be done without having to do anything. Hell, even if he does do something, it won’t change a thing. The truth is already out there for anyone who has eyes to see.

 

The whispers of  _ faggot, faggot, faggot  _ are coming. 

 

And all he can do is wait, and wait and wait, the fear rising as a tsunami as he waits

 

and waits and

 

waits and

 

waits 

 

and…

 

 

The only way out of a nightmare is to  **_wake up_ ** .

 

 

Wake up and it’s all over, and this whole clusterfuck is over, and Jack and the captaincy and his job and hockey is over and it’s all done. 

 

Kent gets an uber to his apartment and walks into a penthouse that is just like him. Beautiful, and empty, with a sadistic soul inside. Well, now Kit Purrson isn’t the only thing inside, so it’s a sadistic soul and a broken one. 

 

He has a bottle of Oxycodone in his medicine cabinet from a shoulder injury two years back. Kent never took it because of Jack, but, hey, at least now it’ll stop the real pain. And to make sure he - he wakes up, he’ll down them with a nice glass of vodka. 

 

Kent goes into the kitchen and gets out one of the tall glasses that his mother helped him buy when he first got the house.

 

“I’m not gonna let my millionaire, NHL-prodigy son get away with drinking out of a plastic cup,” she said. 

 

“Sure mom, whatever you say.” It was Kent’s second year with Aces, and he had the A and the 8-year contract, and he didn’t care what he spent his money on. He still doesn’t. 

He took the glass and the Grey Goose into the bathroom and took out all the pills he had. It was more than enough to overdose- he had a two week supply, and with the vodka there would be no question. Kent filled up the glass and stared at the tableau.

 

Last time he drunk hard liquor out of one of the tall glasses was when the Aces won the Stanley Cup and while that was a very different night, he was not a different person.  Kent has always been the shitstorm of fuckage that he is now. At least, he’s been that way since the draft. 

 

The first few weeks of camp, he was rooming with with one of the older guys, who’d been around since the beginning. Sure, Peanut was nice, and treated Kent like an adult, but… Kent was so lonely. So fucking lonely, and Jack was gone, and his team was new and wary, and his family was across the fucking country. 

 

So he checked with Peanut, and the landlord, and went to a shelter and got Kit. 

 

Kit - who was perfect and imperious and beautiful. Kit - who would be left alone. Kit - who would be hungry, and wouldn’t it be a fucking laugh if - if Kit started to -

 

Kent broke into hysterical giggling. The headlines would be the last thing people remember of him.

 

“ _ KENT PARSON COMMITS” -  _ no.

 

_ “KENT PARSON’S BODY FOUND PARTIALLY EATEN BY HIS INSTAGRAM FAMOUS CAT!” _

 

Kent went back to the kitchen to find the dry cat food, hidden back behind the unused appliances under the stove. Kit hated the dry food much more than then Kent hated useless appliances (who the fuck needs a 10-speed commercial meat slicer?), but it would have to do. 

 

Kent grabbed the scissors and began ripping open the top of the bag, with Kit watching him impassively from her cat tree. 

“I love you girl, you know that?” Kent says. She does know that, but she acts like she doesn't so she can get more treats. 

 

Kent pauses. Should he be telling that to others? 

 

No. Jack already knows or will know when the news breaks. He talked to his family before going to the bar to see the game, and telling his team would just be weird. 

 

Kent can just. Wake up. And everything will be fine.  

 

Everything will be fine

 

if he can just

 

 

_ wake up _ . 

 

 

This is it. The end of Kent Parson’s personal fucking nightmare. And he can go, and he doesn’t need to deal with Jack, or the GM, or his team, or his own fucking loneliness, and he can be free from all the shit that he has. 

 

He’ll be free. 

  
  
  
  


 

 

“Kent. Kent! What the fuck is going on? Why is cat food all over the place? Kent!” 

 

Swoops is here. 

 

Kent starts running towards the bathroom. He can make it. He can’t let Swoops stop him. Jeff doesn’t understand, he doesn't know that Kent Parson is living in a godforsaken hellscape, and he won’t understand that his nightmare needs to end, he doesn't understand-

 

“Kent! Stop!”

 

He can’t stop, not now, not when he is so close to waking-

 

A hand grabs his wrist, and Kent jerks to a stop at the open door to the bathroom.

 

He knows what Jeff can see. 

 

“Wait.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! This is my first bit of fiction writing I have ever created! Please do not be gentle with criticism, I wrote this in two hours (with an extra hour of brainstorm the night before!) and I am sure it shows, and I want as much feedback as I can. 
> 
> Fun Facts: California, Texas, and Florida are all in the top 5 origin states of visitors to Las Vegas (data [here](http://www.lvcva.com/includes/content/images/media/docs/2016-Top-Air-Markets-State.pdf)), though I probably made some unfound assumptions about the type of players at a fictional sports team stadium (so maybe not unfounded?). 
> 
> I also paid attention to @ngoziu's twitter recently where she talked about how Hockey players are pretty conservative, generally (link [here](https://twitter.com/ngoziu/status/949346184677806080)) and kinda wanted to reflect that. 
> 
> Kent's recurring nightmare is (bonus fact!) my own recurring nightmare! It's the fear of death (or for Kent, coming out) that makes it unbearable, not the actual end event. 
> 
> As for what happens next? I don't know! I was really struggling with whether to make Swoops/Aces generally supportive of Kent's sexuality or not. In the end, I realized that no matter what Swoops' opinion on gays, he doesn't want Kent to die. Maybe (?) I will write a companion piece that goes on with the story? I kinda want to wait and see what Ngozi decides to do with Kent. 
> 
> This is also low-key inspired by [Can You Hear the Wolves? They're Howling Outside Your Door](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13188819/chapters/30168231), which combined with my "nightmare" plot bunny to birth this. 
> 
> Finally, much love to Ngozi, who created these wonderful characters!


End file.
